Angels Almanac: Secondary ticket system faces opposition

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ANAHEIM – The Angels made an aggressive move in the offseason to seize control of the secondary market for their tickets from industry leader StubHub.

Now, StubHub is fighting back.

Tuesday, a bill backed by a StubHub advocacy group will be heard in a California state assembly committee meeting as lawmakers try to figure out the next step for an increasingly relevant issue in the sports and entertainment industries.

If enacted, AB 329 would allow season-ticket holders to sell their tickets in whatever manner they choose. After breaking from an MLB-wide agreement with StubHub and re-aligning with rival Ticketmaster in the offseason to create an official secondary ticket exchange, the Angels currently discourage consumers from selling tickets on StubHub and expressly limit the amount of tickets that can be electronically delivered through their competitor's site.

The bill, introduced in March by Dr. Richard Pan (D-Sacramento), would make that illegal.

The Angels say they are pleased with the early returns from those changes.

"It's going better than we could have hoped," said Robert Alvarado, the Angels' vice president of marketing and sales. "Without knowing what StubHub's numbers are, I am convinced that we are taking business away from them, which is why they're panicking. They know that their business has been done closer to game-time to ours, and we're eating into their profit margins."

Because electronically delivered ticket sales are now limited on StubHub, fans can no longer log onto the site on the day of the game and quickly purchase and receive their chosen seats. Theoretically, those same fans are now heading to the Angels' site, where they can do exactly what they used to in the past – for more money.

Alvarado said primary single-game ticket sales on the team's official site are up 13 percent through 10 games.

“Where is that coming from?” he said. “We’re marketing our program appropriately, or we’re giving more options to buy.”

Those referenced options have included various daily deals, often significantly discounted tickets introduced a few days before a given game. Also included: less lower-priced competition from the likes of StubHub in the days and hours leading up to a game.

Similar proposals are going through state assemblies in Texas, Florida and Minnesota. In Tennessee, a Ticketmaster-backed bill trying to counteract StubHub’s proposals was shot down earlier this month.

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